Creation Corner Column, June 2020
World Environment Day, Resources on Pandemics and Climate Crisis, Notable Dates
June 5, World Environment Day theme is Time for Nature, sponsored by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The site provides:
practical guides, action toolkits for a variety of audiences
a biodiversity quiz
download visual materials for sharing on your own platform
explore nature around iconic spots
web site is WorldEnvironmentDay.global
#worldenvironmentday
#fornature
Faith leaders are encouraged to observe an Environmental Sabbath close to June 5.
The UNEP has a Faith for Earth Initiative.
--------------------------------------
Resources re: Pandemics
Ailing in Place: Environmental Inequities and Health Disparities in Appalachia. Michele Morrone.
Broken Boy: A Memoir of Growing Up With Polio in Ireland. Patrick Cockburn.
Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs. Michael Osterholm.
Dirt and Disease: Polio Before FDR. Naomi Rogers.
Epidemics: The Story of South Africa's Five Most Lethal Human Diseases. Howard Phillips. (smallpox, bubonic plaque, Spanish influenza, polio, HIV/AIDS).
Expelling the Plague: The Health Office and the Implementation of Quarantine in Dubrovnik, 1377-1533. Zlagta Blazina Tomic and Vesna Blazina.
Influenza: The Hundred-Year Hunt to Cure the Deadliest Disease in History. Dr. Jeremy Brown.
Megacatastrophes! Nine Strange Ways the World Could End. David Darling & Dirk Schulze-Makuch. (one way is via contagious diseases).
The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator. Timothy C. Winegard.
New Views: The World Mapped Like Never Before. Alastair Bonnett. (includes tropical diseases map)
The Next Pandemic: On the Front Lines Against Humankind's Gravest Danger. Ali Kahn with William Patrick.
Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World. Laura Spinney.
Rationalizing Epidemics: Meanings and Uses of American Indian Mortality Since 1600. David Jones.
Polio Across the Iron Curtain: Hungary's Cold War on an Epidemic. Dora Vargha.
Polio Wars: Sister Kenny and the Golden Age of American Medicine. Naomi Rogers.
The Political Determinants of Health: Daniel E. Dawes; foreword by David R. Williams.
SARS in Context: Memory, History, and Policy. Edited by Jacalyn Duffin and Arthur Sweetman.
The Vaccine Race: Science, Politics, and the Human Costs of Defeating Disease. Meredith Wadman.
-------------------------
Resources re: Climate Crisis
Adapt: How We Can Learn From Nature's Strangest Inventions. Amina Kahn.
The Birds of Pandemonium: Life Among the Exotic and the Endangered. Michelle Raffin.
A Brief History of the End of the World: From Revelation to Eco-Disaster. Simon Pearson.
Last Chance to See. Douglas Adams & Mark Carwardine. (Companion to BBC radio series).
Lead for the Planet: Five Practices for Confronting Climate Change. Rae Andre.
Moving to the Earth's Beat: The Road Back from Eco-Despair. A.J. Chopra.
Our Planet. Alistair Fothergill & Keith Scholey. David Attenborough, foreword. (Companion to the 2019 Netflix documentary series).
Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey. Jane Goodall with Phillip Berman.
Seaweed Chronicles: A World at the Water's Edge. Susan Hand Shetterly.
Solved: How the World's Great Cities Are Fixing the Climate Crisis. David Miller.
Still Waters: The Secret World of Lakes. Curt Stager.
The Story of CO2: Big Ideas for a Small Molecule: Geoffrey A. Ozin and Mireille F. Ghoussoub.
Techno-Fixers: Origins and Implications of Technological Faith. Sean F. Johnston.
We Resist: Defending the Common Good in Hostile Times. Edited by Cynthia Levine-Basky and Lisa Kowalchuk (environment one among many subjects).
Wrenched From the Land: Activists Inspired by Edward Abbey. Interviews with ML Lincoln.
Youth to Power: Your Voice and How to Use It. Jamie Margolin (climate justice activist).
Note: See prior monthly Creation Corner Columns for more books on pandemics and climate crisis.
-------------------------------
Dates Worth Noting:
May 9 World Migratory Bird Day
May 15 Endangered Species Day
June 8 World Oceans Day
June 12, 1982 NYC Nuclear Disarmament Rally draws 1 million
July 12, 1817 Henry David Thoreau born
July 16, 1945 1st atomic bomb tested at Trinity site, New Mexico
-----------------------------------------------
Mike Ochs finds common ground between religion and politics in his concern for the environment.
Politically he self-published the first "Greens Bibliography" of the English-language literature on the international Green Party movement (1989), the project for his Master of Liberal Arts in International Studies degree at Lock Haven (PA) University. He also helped plant the seeds for the Green Party of PA at that time, and remains a cyber-activist with it.
For a monthly newsletter of the ecumenical United Churches of Lycoming County (PA), he has written the "Creation Corner Column" since 1997. It became a blog in 2011 at
He received a B.A. degree from Gettysburg College in 1965.
